


Healing…?

by Angelgod187



Series: The Davis Investigation (Part 1) [13]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Connor being a mother hen, Emotional Hurt, Healing, M/M, Mentions of past character rape, PTSD, Stubborn Gavin, Suicide Attempt, mentions of past character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:14:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25486048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Angelgod187/pseuds/Angelgod187
Summary: Gavin tries to heal and move onConnor won't give up on his brother
Relationships: Hank Anderson/Connor, Upgraded Connor | RK900/Gavin Reed
Series: The Davis Investigation (Part 1) [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1790206
Comments: 15
Kudos: 70





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Ok, ok, so I thought this was going to be 12 parts because that's how they're numbered in the doc... but I apparently can't count. There is actually 13, which weirdly fits with Part 1... So yeah!
> 
> Part 2 is currently in the works, don't worry! It'll probably take me another two months to get it to where I want it, but should editing drag, it should hopefully get done by the end of this year. I'm the type to finish the whole thing before posting, so this might take awhile. The most wonderful [WickedWon!](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WickedWon/pseuds/WickedWon) is helping me along the way! So finish this thing up and go check out their stuff as well!
> 
> I continued to tag character death/ rape just to be clear that the topics will continue to be explored in this story as well and don't want anyone to be given a nasty surprise. Its just to be safe.
> 
> Ok, enjoy my stilted try at emotions!

Connor watched the CyberLife technician re-read the RK900 manual. For the fifth time. He was confused, muttering obscenities to himself, searching for something that didn’t seem to make sense to him. Connor tapped a quick beat against the chair arm, getting rather impatient. 

The man sighed. He removed the main fusion state drive, Nines’ LED going red at the removal. He grabbed for the weirdly shaped solid state drive that was once laying under a hotel bed and stuck it in the now vacant spot. The LED didn’t change colors. Disappointed that his third attempt still didn’t work, he switched the drives back, Nines’ LED returning to blue. 

“I’m at a total loss,” the human finally said, throwing his proverbial towel in. He turned to Connor. “I don’t know where this hard drive should go.” 

“Did you not work on his project?” Connor demanded. 

“As an intern,” the man scoffed. He looked down at the hard drive. “He has the three ports filled and this one doesn’t seem compatible with any of them. His manual doesn’t say anything about a fourth port. I’m sorry. All the people qualified to handle this were probably arrested.”

_ And refused to help, _ Connor added in his own processor. All of them claimed they had no idea there should be a fourth port. The sad part? None of them had the normally obvious signs of lying. They truly didn’t know. That didn’t stop the DA from adding ‘impeding an investigation’ to their charges. Connor learned the emotion of petty the day he refused to share their innocence.

They still hadn’t found the Davis brothers. The engineers insisted that they stuck around a few hours to facilitate the massive changes they’d made, then up and left. It would just so happen that they arrived too late. The FBI were still on the case, trying to hunt down the masterminds behind what was quickly becoming dubbed, _The_ _ Reformers Cult _ .

Connor wasn’t sure where this hard drive had come from and was starting to think the multiple samples he’d taken against the hard drive to assure it was Nines’, were faulty. 

Connor sighed, taking the hard drive back. “Go ahead and start him up. I’ll take him home.”

The man nodded solemnly, “I’m sorry I couldn’t be of much help.” 

Connor ordered a taxi, pacing the hallway. 

The androids recovered were woefully ignoring their deviancy, rather than having been reset. It explained why those who ’re-deviated’ could. They still had a choice. Resetting Nines to the factory baseline was the first thing the crazed engineers had done. Along with all the other modifications they added to him, Nines was unrecognizable. 

He was currently sporting a beard. His hair was noticeably longer to Connor, and he had peach fuzz up and down his arms and legs. They had to force him to shower, his sweating was minimal since he was mostly in Hank’s house all the time now but noticeable to Hank after a few days. Connor was spending his money to outfit the android with new clothes, so that the old ones could be washed. His whole routine had changed overnight. The worst was that as an un-deviated android, they had to order him to do all of this. EVery order felt like acid on Connor's tongue. 

The androids recovered from the retrofitted barn were being held, but no formal charges had been placed against them. The breaking news of them wanting to be undeviated opened whole new discussion points that New Jericho and Marcus were dealing with. Connor wasn’t envious at all, answering what he could for Marcus and crew to help them. It wasn’t much, but it was something. 

The ex-intern walked Nines out, interrupting Connors thoughts. 

“He’s ready when you are!”

“How do you feel?” Connor asked. 

“Answering is not within the parameters of my software. I cannot feel,” Nines monotone voice replied. 

Connor sighed. “Right. Come on, we’re going home.”

Connor digitally paid for the man's time as he led Nines back out to a waiting taxi. 

Nines took his seat without command, a small improvement. Three weeks. Three weeks they’ve been trying everything in their power to bring Nines back. 

Marcus has suggested deviating Nines again, but that path returned barren. The RK900 firewalls were reinforced titanium to any sign of deviancy. Josh had concluded the engineers strengthened this software to keep Nines from incriminating them. No matter how they tried, they couldn’t break through the red wall themselves. It held the potential of helping them, but even a machine could point out in a line up who gave the order to rape Gavin. 

Connor had hoped replacing the hard drive would do what was needed, but no one knew where it should go. The last option… was not ideal. 

Stick Nines in his current state with Gavin to have the human deviate him slowly over time. If anyone could do it, it was him. Unfortunately, Gavin wanted nothing to do with this un-Nines machine and Connor couldn’t blame him. 

Gavin was back home after a few days of monitored hospital time after his surgery to stop the internal bleeding. Between Connor and Hank, one was always helping with Gavin’s recovery. Hank currently at the apartment while Connor dealt with this latest dead end. 

Connor dropped Nines off at the house ordering him to relax, got back in the taxi and headed to the apartment to relieve Hank. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Gavin,” Connor’s tone warned. “Come on. I can see you’re in pain.”
> 
> “Gee, thanks for pointing out the obvious,” he closed his eyes. “Go away.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not a physiatrist and the mentioned mental therapy is not to be taken as medical advice.

Gavin groaned at the soft knock on his front door, pulling him from the edge of the nightmare starting to devour him. The after image of hooded ice blue eyes and the fading memory of ripping flesh burned him. Gavin shifted to replace the phantom pains with the soft sheets, but it only pulled on mending bone. The sharp twist of healing sinew woke him in an instant.

Hank grunted from the living room, getting to his feet, going to the door. The telling squeak of a hinge and a quiet, “hey, Con. He’s been asleep,” was all Gavin needed. 

Connor’s silhouette knocked on the door. “Hey, time for pain medication.”

“Don’t want ‘em,” Gavin protested. They made the dreams more vivid. They reminded him how trapped he was in this never ending hellscape. 

“Gavin,” Connor’s tone warned. “Come on. I can see you’re in pain.”

“Gee, thanks for pointing out the obvious,” he closed his eyes. “Go away.”

“You have one more day of the meds,” Connor reminded him. “You’ve got this.”

Gavin was really regretting opening up to Connor after a particularly painful reminder of the bathroom stall. He was coddling at the worst of times and now Gavin couldn’t just walk away from it. “Fuck off, Connor! I don’t want it anymore!”

Connor tisked. “I’m not leaving till you take it.”

Gavin growled, pulling the duvet up to his lips. 

Connor didn’t back down. “Take the meds, then I can help you to the bathroom.”

Gavin growled again in reminder of how little he could do with both his legs taken out of commission. He didn’t move, glaring up at Connor. He’d moved closer to Gavin’s side, his hand fisted with the pills he was carrying. The light from the living room shined on half his face, giving the sharp edged android a menacing look. 

“Fine,” Connor turned on his heels. “You’ve been like this for days. You can clearly help yourself, then? I’ll start on dinner.” He walked out. 

At the mention of the bathroom, his bladder made it well known how much it needed attention. The asshole android knew that, too. Gavin grit his teeth, looking at the wheelchair just out of reach. Purposefully put out of his reach. Connor had made the mistake once and found Gavin in a rather compromised position, drenched in sweat from the pain, stitches reopened. 

It had been a minor setback as far as he was concerned but nanny bot wasn’t taking any more chances. Everything was perfectly out of reach from Gavin, who was starting to find it easier on his crutches, but only for short bursts around the apartment. His legs had attrophed over the past month of recovery and everything in him wanted to be back up and working. The down time was giving him too much time to think… and that was the last thing he needed right now. 

How much he missed Nines. Comparing how Connor did things to what Nines would have done and how it’d be better. How Nines was dead. 

Gavin slung his arm over his face to hide the tears that started to slip beyond his control. The reminder of the machine came with the wash of anger on the heels of numbing depression. He couldn’t see the android the fucked up human engineers turned his Nines into. He couldn’t look at those cold expressionless eyes and not think of the bathroom. He couldn’t spend any time with the shell of his lover without getting hysterical on it. 

He tried to forgive. He did. Even though Nines ignored him, never taking any of their arguments into account as he boldly kept poking the bear. Gavin could forgive it all if he only had him back.

But his body, his ruined psyche, couldn’t handle the lack of presence. The empty side of the bed Gavin’s personal funeral pyar for Nines. 

It killed him inside. 

Nines, who could probably withstand a nuclear bomb and yet pet through Gavin’s hair with such finesse… gone. Reduced to the cold machine he should have been all along. 

Connor tried to give updates of their progress on bringing Nines back, but after Markus and crew failed to deviate him, Gavin sobbed out the demand to never hear anything new. His mangled hope didn’t have a chance if he held onto ‘maybe’ for the rest of his life. 

So he didn’t. He was letting himself grieve. Connor and Hank respected that, Nines a taboo subject around the healing human. Gavin sometimes could hear Connor updating Hank when he came back, like today. Gavin threw a pillow over his head and cried harder, letting the rush of blood drown out the continued failure of finding his boyfriend. 

*

So Gavin gritted through eight weeks of recovery. Two months of physical therapy he pushed way too hard at. All the while and for another six months, he saw a psychiatrist, Dr. Rodriguez. It was his first time seriously talking with a professional, even with the mandated two weeks when shots were fired, it was easy to get sign off when he didn’t show any outward signs of PTSD. 

He’d gone through all the shit on the force only to be raped by the machine that looked like his boyfriend to have broken him. Dr. Rodriguez was nothing short of a saint and Gavin learned to trust her. 

“You beat yourself up. A lot,” she said one day, drawing Gavin from his thoughts. 

“Huh?”

“You’ve mentioned off handedly a few times, this on-going idea that you should be stronger than what you went through. That your job put you under more stress than what led to you sitting here with me--” she learned early on to not say the R word. Gavin could only say it. Hearing it from someone else… made Nines sound guilty, and Gavin wasn’t sure he could ever equate the machine with his loving dead boyfriend. He knew better, he lived through it. They  _ didn’t _ and  _ they _ always fucked it up. 

“-- have you ever given yourself the proper time to grieve for the person you would have been?”

Gavin frowned. “The person I would have been?”

“Yes. Rather than coming from the mindset of old you, who never went through this and is judging current you, who has? Why not allow that old version of yourself to quiet down? Give yourself permission to be the version of yourself who went through something so traumatic. You survived, but you're not allowing yourself to move on. You are only berating yourself for who you think you still should be.

“Till our next visit, take some time to really think about this new you, ok? Not from the vantage point of old you, but this you. Do you understand?”

“I think so?” The idea broke a cold sweat along his spine. “But…”

“Yes?”

Gavin took a deep breath. “I don’t want to forget… him.”

“You never will,” Dr. Rodriguez insisted. “The man he was will still live inside you. This exercise isn’t to eliminate your memories, just shift your internal dialogue, give yourself a break. Understand?” 

Gavin nodded. 

“Ok, that’s our hour. Have a great rest of your week, Gavin.”

“You too, doc.” 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I know how to fix Nines,” he whispered in shock. 

“Still on the Davis case?” Will, a good childhood friend of Kelston’s asked, pointing with his chin over Kelston’s shoulder. Kelston turned to see Geanna interfacing with her computer. Nothing out of the ordinary. Till something on the top left of her screen caught his attention as well. 

“Geanna?”

She perked up, looking over her shoulder. “Yes, sir?”

“What are you looking at?”

“Nines’ user manual,” she admitted sheepishly. “Connor is asking me to look over it, as a favor. I’m on lunch,” she added defensvily. 

“Oh, no, you aren’t in trouble,” he insisted. “Just wondering.”

“Is that the public one?” Will asked casually.

Geanna’s LED went yellow. “Public?”

“Yeah. I rendezvoused between Homeland Security and CyberLife when the higher ups were looking to buy a small army of them. The public and internal manual are different, help cover all the state secrets added to the RK900 should they have needed it to go undercover.”

“Shit man, you never mentioned that!” Kelston said, slapping his friend's shoulder. 

“Can we access those?” She asked, getting excited. 

Will shrugged. “Wouldn’t have said anything if I didn’t think it was possible.” 

“We can say it’s an add-in for the Davis investigation,” Kelston added, already getting ideas of his own. “Should have known to ask you about this shit, rather than flounder for half a year.”

Geanna nodded her head from side to side. “The sooner I can compare, the better.”

“Give me till the end of today to find it for you,” Will said. The two humans wandering off for lunch. 

Good on his promise, Geanna got the top secret PDF in her email at four thirty. She glanced up from her cubical to smile brightly at Kelston who was CC’d, waving her off. 

Syncing with her computer, it was child's play to pull the two manuals up and compare. She gasped when she reached the more confidential portion of the one, ripping it apart to send to Connor. 

*

Connor dropped the coffee he was holding, eyes distant and wide with shock. Gavin cursed, the coffee just missing his desk, splashing all over the floor and onto the android. He was purely on desk duty but it was fucking great to be back. 

Now why the fuck was his partner dropping his shit?! “What the fuck, Connor?!”

“I know how to fix Nines,” he whispered in shock. 

The quiet words stopped Gavin’s breath. Stole all the air in the room. Took everything in his body not to stand and throttle Connor for daring to speak his name. Gavin was so close to finally being through the grieving process and--

Connor moved with a purpose, leaving the bullpen at a dead sprint. Leaving an equally baffled and pissed off Gavin in his wake.

*

Connor slammed the front door open, startling his human and dog sitting on the couch. Sumo started barking at him, chasing after Connor as he ran into his and Hank’s room.

“Connor?! Connor! What the hell is going on?! Why are you home?!” 

Connor didn’t respond, grabbing the long solid state drive, he rushed back out, narrowly missing Hank and running for the kitchen. 

“RK900, open your chest plate!” He shouted as he rounded the order. 

Nines was removing his shirt, the small concave dip in the cotten giving way that he’d done as told. Connor ripped the shirt open, buttons flying across the room. 

“Jesus-- Connor! Stop that! You're going to hurt him!”

The refined charcoal gray chassis that stared back at him was so different from what had been white. He reached up, shoving Nines’ chin back. He flipped the drive in hand, reaching up around the artificial lungs installed, to a port hidden expertly. Designed for no one to find at a glance, it was perfect. 

On the back side of the collar bone, on the left side, it was hollow. The drive slipped expertly into place with a quick flip of Connor’s wrist. 

Nines froze, the petabytes of data downloading. Connor pulled back, slipping the chassis plate back over. Synth skin slowly covered the dark gray, LED blinking between yellow and red as he processed everything. 

“What the hell did you just do, Connor?!” Hank demanded, pulling him away from Nines. 

“I remember,” Nines whispered. 

Hank froze, turning back to the android. “What did he just say?”

Connor got down on his knees, grabbing at his younger brother's hands. “You do?”

Nines grabbed at his chest, curling in on himself, “I remember everything I did to him!” He shouted in distress. 

“Wait, Nines!”

The successor was moving, shoving human and android aside. He reached the service pistol Connor kept in his shoulder holster at the door. Hank shouted out in panic, Sumo barking in the background with the flurry of activity. Connor blocked them all out, moving to try and match the faster android. Connor dived just in time to change the trajectory of the gun Nines aimed at his eye, ready to kill himself, the bullet going high and into Hank’s ceiling. Nines battled Connor, fighting for the weapon. 

“Gavin misses you!” Connor shouted out in the chaos. 

Nines stilled, his LED a solid red, his stress at ninety nine percent. Ice blue eyes filled with pure agony glared down at Connor. “He doesn't _ want  _ to see me. I don’t think I can see him. What they  _ forced _ me to do to him! I can’t live with it, Connor! Let go!”

Another small struggle, but no bullet fired off. Connor was just strong enough to keep his successor from completing self destruction. 

“He didn’t want to see what they made you,” Connor corrected. “You’re back! He’ll be so happy to see you!”

“It’s been months,” Nines argued, stress slowly dropping. “I’ve been sitting here doing nothing for months. I should have been helping him!”

“He’s fully recovered, Nines.”

Nines closed his eyes to hide from the truth, Connor wincing at his misstep. Wasn’t the best to remind Nines of what he’d done to his lover so soon after being back. “Give me the gun,” Connor said, still holding onto the barrel. Nines slowly relinquished his hold on the weapon till Connor had it back under his control. He placed the gun on the ground and slid it over to Hank, who quickly picked it up and removed the magazine and loaded chamber. 

Connor grabbed Nines into a tight hug that was quickly reciprocated. The brothers held each other, till Nines broke down, sobbing into Connor’s shoulder. They stood there for nearly two hours, Connor letting Nines work everything out. It was hard to believe after so long that Nines was back. 

“I feel everything,” he said, pulling back from Connor, touching at his clothed arms. Nines slowly followed up to his ruined shirt and then his own chest, covered in a small dusting of hair. “They gave me a neural network, hair, but it feels so different now that I’m deviant, again…”

“Let’s not overwhelm the system,” Connor said. “Come, sit. You’ve been gone for almost six months. We have a lot to talk about.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for coming on this journey with the boys! Obviously, this isn't quite done. I finished draft one of Part 2 last night, and look forward to start posting that when its good and ready!


End file.
